ABC's 'THE MIDDLE' (1 Viewer)

I was pretty impressed with tonight's episode. I watch and enjoy all of ABC's Wednesday night comedies, but I think "The Middle" is probably the most consistent of the lot.

Adam Lenhardt said:

I was pretty impressed with tonight's episode. I watch and enjoy all of ABC's Wednesday night comedies, but I think "The Middle" is probably the most consistent of the lot.

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I absolutely adore this show, consistently well done and has a great cast.
Also like the rest of the Wednesday comedies, except for "The Bitchi in Apartment 23". Comes across as a "2 Broke Girls" wanna be. But "2 Broke Girls " is a by far a much better show.The bitch is truly a bitch, incredibly obnoxious, and it's not funny. Not a lot of humor there.

************************MESSAGE TO MODS************************


There seems to be something seriously wonky with this Topic's interface, at least from where I'm sitting!


Only 2 out of 34 posts are actually displaying!


This may bear some looking into.


CHEERS!


Tony


*************************UPDATE****************************


After posting the above, the post numbers shifted from "#2 of 34" to "#3 of 3"!


Confused? I am!!

There are definitely a ton of posts that disappeared, Tony. I think something went wonky with this thread when they converted it from Huddler.


At the end of tonight's episode, when Sue didn't care one iota that she didn't get into any sororities, I was struck by what a consistently excellent series this has been, one of the highest batting average comedies on television. Its laugh count isn't the highest, but I'm always invested in the characters and the situations they find themselves in.


The fact that "Modern Family" gets so much love and this gets so little love has always been perplexing to me. The best thing I can come up with is that Emmy voters relate more to the Pritchett-Dunphy-Tucker family because they're much closer socioeconomically to them than they are to the Hecks. Which is skewed, because the country as a whole is much closer socioeconomically to the Hecks than the extended family in "Modern Family."

I always liked The Middle better than Modern Family. While I like MF, it's first few seasons DID have a high "laugh count", I've grown somewhat weary of it, and find I'm not as anxious to watch every new episode right away. I've watched both shows since they premiered together and I'll keep watching them both till they end, but The Middle is a show I would buy a complete series DVD of and watch over again. It REALLY doesn't get the attention that it deserves.

Always enjoyed "The Middle". It's just a regular family dealing with life and its problems.

MF I watch occasionally, but so tired of the ridiculous rich people issues. Big, beautiful homes, constantly getting new cars, etc. How about a little reality.

Creators/showrunners Eileen Heisler and DeAnn Heline have announced that the upcoming ninth season of "The Middle" will be its last.

This show has been one of (if not the) most remarkably consistent sitcoms of the twenty-first century. As sad I am to see it go, I'm glad they're ending things while it's still good.

That's a shame. This is such a great show. To be honest I'm surprised it went on this long. I would've expected it to fall apart once Sue and Axl had both gone off to college. That it was and still include the entire cast and still stay true to itself says something about the writers.

We've actually been watching the first two seasons over the summer because we weren't watching the show in the early days. We noticed the some of the clothing Brick wears now is the same as the clothes Axl was wearing in the early seasons. That's some attention to detail!

I am more than a season behind, but I still enjoy watching some of those episodes on the DVR.

I would agree it's a shame that it won't be on anymore, but the take away is that it'll have given us 9 seasons of amazing comedic television. And I trust that this final season will be a wonderful wrap. Heck, one of my favorite sitcoms ever, 3rd Rock, lasted only 6 seasons, and as a complete series it's absolute perfection in my book. I wouldn't change a thing about that show, and come next spring I don't think I'll want to change a thing about The Middle. Bring it on!

It's not over yet, still another full season to go. Hope they do it well. So many shows go just a bit to far and kind of ruin the good feelings of the earlier seasons. Bow out gracefully when you're doing it well, don't try and extend things a few more years.

Wonderful sendoff for this very underrated series in tonight's series finale. They didn't try and do anything weird or cute, just another of the family's hilarious road trips with short little scenes at the end showing how everyone's life progressed.

I'm still laughing about Brick's takeover of the bedroom and "Battleboggleopoly".

I started crying (mostly) happy tears in the first scene of the finale and haven't completely stopped yet. That was wonderful and will go down as one of the best series finales ever.

Except for one teeny tiny thing.

One of the best, most consistent, quietly excellent sitcoms of all time. "Modern Family" and "The Middle" premiered at the same time, and "Modern Family" got all of the buzz and accolades. But here we are nine years later and "Modern Family" is a cold, cynical shadow of its former self. Meanwhile, the quality of "The Middle" never dipped and they knew when to call it a day.

And tonight they stuck the landing.

Malcolm R said:

Wonderful sendoff for this very underrated series in tonight's series finale. They didn't try and do anything weird or cute, just another of the family's hilarious road trips with short little scenes at the end showing how everyone's life progressed.

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You nailed it. My initial reaction is to put it up there with "Justified" among my very favorite series finales, for exactly the reasons you mention: It's not bold or showy or avant garde. It's just a true and satisfying ending for the story.

Jake Lipson said:

I started crying (mostly) happy tears in the first scene of the finale and haven't completely stopped yet.

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I don't remember crying, but damned if my eyes weren't all teared up by the end. I think it started right around when the snow globe broke.

That was wonderful and will go down as one of the best series finales ever.

Except for one teeny tiny thing.

Spoiler

Where was Cindy in the flash forward? Brick is wearing a wedding ring in the finale, but it would have been nice to be see her just to be sure it is her. Although I can't imagine who else it would be, but still.

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That was my only complaint as well. Loved that Axl and Lexie ended up together, loved that Sue and Sean ended up together, but would have liked to see Cindy pop up for the flash forwards. I did think their prom night in the library was a nice to note to leave them on, though.

I just tweeted the creators to ask why Cindy wasn't in the finale and for official confirmation as to whether she ended up with Brick. (I assume so but would still like it to be officially confirmed.) We'll see if they respond. If I should be so lucky as to get a response, I'll post about it here.

And here is a terrific postmortem interview with co-creator Eileen Heisler about the finale and the season.

http://deadline.com/2018/05/the-mid...een-heisler-showrunner-reboot-abc-1202395580/

The whole interview at the link is worth reading, but the most interesting section I've quoted below.

DEADLINE: Why is now a good time for the show to end?

HEISLER: Well, it isn’t because we ran out of stories. We had a whole board of stories we never got to. We felt it was a good time to end because we were all still loving it, loving each other, and enjoying ourselves. We never wanted to get to the point where we were retreading old stories, or anyone was feeling restless and wishing they were somewhere else. We wanted to go out while we’re still at the top — (the middle?) — of our game, and to have a year of knowing we were wrapping up so we could write to an ending. We feel very grateful we’ve gotten to do that, and hope we are leaving fans wanting more.

DEADLINE: If ABC wanted one more season of The Middle what would be next in the Heck family narrative?

HEISLER: Our ratings have been great and ABC was very clear they did want more seasons — it was our decision to bring it to a close. And hey… I can’t tell you what’s next… gotta save it for the reboot. See you in ten years!

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1) I wonder what's on their untold stories board.

2) As much as I want to know the answer to question #1, I respect them tremendously for wanting to take it out on a high, and arcing the ending out the way that they did. Modern Family should take notes, because this is how you do it. I really think ABC needs to confirm officially that Season 10 will be the last for Modern Family, but it's so far gone that even if they did, I'm not sure if they would bee able to deliver an ending half as satisfying as this one anyore.

3) Maybe she was joking, but I'd totally watch the reboot in 10 years, if by reboot they mean "continuation" and not "wipe the slate clean with a new cast." Although the existence of the flash forward sort of dictates where they would have to pick up, I'd be on board with that, because unlike Roseanne and Will & Grace, this finale didn't do anything they shouldn't have done that they would want or need to retcon out (like, say, killing Mike and then deciding they didn't.) This was pretty much perfect.

Another fan responded to my Twitter question mentioning the wedding ring on Brick's finger at the end and tagged the writers, so they may not feel the need to respond now, if they see it. I'm too polite to get into an argument with this person about it, but Brick's wedding ring is NOT absolute confirmation that he is married to Cindy. We can assume that he probably is, but I would still value official confirmation from the show (or, since the show didn't give it to us, the writers.)

Sorry, what I was about to post, referring to another show, was unnecessary.

Please ignore.

They were apparently married in the episode where we saw Brick’s future. It’d be interesting to see how much of that matches up with the finale.

Yes, I remember that Halloween show...but it was still weird to completely exclude her from the final episode, given that she's been a longstanding recurring character for four seasons. Even Brad got to come say goodbye to Axl, and he didn't even really ever have anything to do with Axl's story.

Well, this is a surprise:

http://deadline.com/2018/05/the-middle-spinoff-starring-eden-sher-sue-abc-1202400167/

On the one hand, who wouldn't want to spend more time with Sue?

On the other hand, I'd be a lot more excited about this if they had not done the flash-forwards thing last week. We know from that that Sue and Sean break up and get back together twice before getting married. That feels like it's going to have to dictate the direction of any potential new series, at least in parts of it that are relative to Sue's love life. So if they were going to do a spinoff, I think it would have made more sense to not do that and give themselves more freedom to tell the next chapter of her story without having any predetermined goal posts they have to hit.